volunteer at homeless shelter/public school

[Wahed]

During my stay in Beijing, I would like to volunteer at an elementary/middle school (maybe high school). I say maybe for the high school option because here at home I avoid high schools because of the drama that teenagers keep up. If China is different in this regard then I wouldn't mind including them as well.

 

For both options, since I can only speak in Chinese, I would want to help out maybe in PE or just playing with the children.

 

小學:

From what I can see on Baidu maps, there are four elementary schools Minzu Daxue:

http://map.baidu.com/?newmap=1&ie=utf-8&s=s%26wd%3D%E5%8C%97%E4%BA%AC%E5%B0%8F%E5%AD%B8

http://map.baidu.com/?newmap=1&s=con%26wd%3D%E5%8C%97%E4%BA%AC%E5%B0%8F%E5%AD%A6%26c%3D131&from=alamap&tpl=mapdots

 

I still do not know how to read or work Baidu that well. How far do you think these four primary schools are from Minzu daxue? I am guessing taking the subway is the only way to get there the fastest and cheapest. Thoughts?

 

中學:

http://map.baidu.com/?newmap=1&ie=utf-8&s=s%26wd%3D%E5%8C%97%E4%BA%AC%E5%B0%8F%E5%AD%B8

 

Hmm, there only seems to be one in the area near Minzu daxue. Although I may not be using the correct keyword to perform the search. I used “北京中學”.

 

高學:

http://map.baidu.com/?newmap=1&ie=utf-8&s=s%26wd%3D%E5%8C%97%E4%BA%AC%E5%B0%8F%E5%AD%B8

 

For this it seems like all the schools are specialized schools so I guess this isn’t an option.

 

Thoughts on the above?

 

 

Now for the homeless shelters.

 

I couldn’t find a word or phrase for ‘homeless shelter’ anywhere so I am not sure what keywords to input into 百度地圖 in order to get results for the locations of homeless shelters.

 

Thoughts on this?

[ChTTay]

I don't think you'll be allowed just to go to a school and 'volunteer' there. Also, I doubt that these schools in Haidian (you mention close to Minzu) are really the places you should be looking at to 'give back'. Many of the students families are pretty comfortable, a fair number you'd probably class as 'rich' - at least for China.

 

More worthwhile would be to look into programs/organizations that actually want you to go and volunteer in the first place. Start with;

 

http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/beijing/blog/volunteering-opportunities-beijing/

 

For me, BEAM looks real interesting. A few of my classmates ended up on this program.

[Angelina]

I remember we once talked to an orphanage in Hangzhou and they told us "our orphanage is rich, we don't need your contributions".

Also, they told us how most children there need special needs education.

Edit

Here is the correspondence (not in Beijing, not near Minzu University, it might be useful for you to know more about orphanages)

Email 1

您好！首先非常感谢您和您的朋友对孩子们的爱！我们欢迎各界爱心人士来院看望关心孩子们，因为平时孩子们要上课，所以每个月的最后一个礼拜天为我们的“爱心开放日”，这个月是29号，如果你们来访人数在3个人以内，到时候可以过来，如果超过了，恐怕就要安排到下个月了，因为这个月我们的预约安排已经非常满。还有一个问题是，如果是非中国国籍的爱心人士，来访前还需要有市外事办的审批文件，方能来我院，敬请谅解配合。

- People who are not citizens of China need a special permit to visit us during our open day (once a month).

Email 2

您好：... 先生，恐怕我要非常遗憾地告诉您，如果没有外事办的来访审批文件，我们没有办法接待您，因为您不是中国人（您之前签证时的审批和我们需要的不同）。关于捐赠物品的话，我们的确不建议大家捐赠旧衣服，一来消毒上没有设备，二来我们国家对福利院的孩子很重视，孩子们的仓库里新衣服还有存货，所以，衣服我们暂时是够穿的，你捐过来的话担心是要浪费了。其实现在福利院里面的孩子条件还挺好的，您可以和朋友们关注一下贫困山区的孩子们，他们可能更需要帮助。再次非常感谢您的爱心！

- Children living in orphanages are a priority for our country;

- I am afraid you will be wasting your time if you come and make a donation;

- The conditions here are excellent, you can try helping children from poor mountainous areas (贫困山区)

Email 3

您好！非常感谢您对孩子们的关心。具体的话您可以网上搜索一下贫困儿童的信息，我想应该有很多需要帮助的孩子，我个人也不是很清楚。我们院里的孩子教英语这些可能都有些困难，因为孩子们脑瘫或者智障等为主，我们院里现在对孩子们进行的都是一些特殊教育，比如自闭症、蒙台梭利教学等。好的，我等您的消息 ... 先生。

- You can't volunteer to teach them English or anything similar, they are children with special needs.

[Wahed]

@ChTTay - Thank you, I do not wish to volunteer at rich schools. (no offense to them)

 

At the same time though, I would rather volunteer at places where locals very often frequent instead of foreigners. I saw that webpage you mentioned but choose not to look into it because of the target audience.

 

I will ask some Chinese Beijing natives about this if I can find any that are located around Minzu uni.

 

Anyone else that can chime in here is welcomed. 

[ChTTay]

". I saw that webpage you mentioned but choose not to look into it because of the target audience"

The website is cityweekend which is a magazine aimed at expats. However, the article is simply a list of volunteering organisations. Don't assume that because they are on this website they have a lot of volunteers. It's likely they never have enough. Generally, everywhere, not enough people volunteer.

Who else would a charitable organisation looking for volunteers be helping other than "locals"? Although, mostly it's migrants who need help, rather than locals. In particular those with children and no access to education.

Are you trying to avoid other foreign volunteers or something?

[Wahed]

Are you trying to avoid other foreign volunteers or something?

Yes because of the language pledge. I would like to stick to it so I do not 'get in trouble'. I can understand someone feeling insulted by a foreigner who refuses to speak English with them. So, I would rather avoid getting into that type of situation in the first place if possible.

[ChTTay]

It's more than likely the people running these organisations are Chinese or speak it. Equally, most often they need foreigners to teach migrant children basic English, maybe some math and science. You'd have to speak English to teach it.

Also note that in a few of these things you buddy up with a child. You don't need to speak to anyone in English. For a few of these opportunities you need to have at least HSk 4 level to do it.

Don't limit yourself. Take a closer look at those places.

[Wahed]

Good points, I wiil look into them, thank you.

 

What about orphanges and/or homeless shelters like the ones that exist here in the United States?

 

Edit:

I just noticed the update that Angelina made to her earlier post.

 

So, perhaps I will need to venture outside of Beijing to do more meaningful volunteer work? Or Angelina did you mean poor mountainous areas in/near Beijing? (please excuse my ignorance if there are no poor areas like this in Beijing. I know little about China's geography)

 

If it's outside of Beijing, then it might be a bit hard because I think all students have to notify the field director every time we want to leave Beijing.

[anonymoose]

Have you thought of old people's homes （养老院）?

[Shelley]

Yes because of the language pledge. I would like to stick to it so I do not 'get in trouble'. I can understand someone feeling insulted by a foreigner who refuses to speak English with them. So, I would rather avoid getting into that type of situation in the first place if possible.

 

Print/write some business cards that say something along the lines of " I can't speak English to you otherwise i will be breaking my "language pledge". Please speak to me in Chinese."

 

Then you can go anywhere and meet anyone and do anything without "fear of getting in trouble"

 

I understand the basic concept behind a pledge but if you can't even explain to some one why you can't speak English, it's going to be difficult.

 

I am no expert but I don't think the basic concept of "volunteering" is the same in China as else where. For example in the USA you can do Candy striping which is helping out in hospitals or old peoples homes, this is usually for people who are thinking of going into some branch of medicine, but not necessarily.

 

Are you at a school or college etc in Beijing? It might be best to ask your teachers about the best places to "volunteer" as they are local and should know or at least know where to find out.

 

 

 

 

[Wahed]

Have you thought of old people's homes （养老院）?

I would like to stick with elementary and middle school students as that is where I have the most experience.

 

@Shelley - Good idea about the business cards but we have these pin-on tags that have "我只說中文" written on them so that may suffice.

[Shelley]

Badges work just a well, but if the person you talking to only speaks English, they are going to have a hard time reading your pin-on tag

 

Maybe it should be in English too.

[zhouhaochen]

I assume volunteering at any school for you as a foreigner while refusing to speak English will be difficult. Unless you are an expert in mathematics or some other topic, the only thing they would really want your help with would be, well teaching English. I would be surprised if a local school would put up with the administrative work, potential legal problems, time required to organize, train etc. for someone who will then just play with the children, especially if you stay for less than a year and even less likely if during that time you might want to go on hoidays, travel etc.

A lot of people underestimate the work it requires for an organization to organize work for someone who is not a trained professional, unfamiliar with the system or only there for a limited period (if that person is not fluent in Mandarin, that makes things worse).

The only realistic chance I see would be at a privately run migrant school.

[Wahed]

I've never even heard about anything such as a "private migrant school". But I just googled it and read a very long article about the different aspects of it. That sounds like it is exactly what I am looking for! Now, I just have to find a couple near Minzu that I can contact via email or telephone.

[zhouhaochen]

Good luck, let us know how it went afterwards.